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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26184895">you drew stars around my scars</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/thebeautifulbadass/pseuds/thebeautifulbadass'>thebeautifulbadass</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>you and me, we’re the stuff of folklore [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Dead To Me (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, F/F, Fluff, Mentions of self-harm, Smut, more of a smut tease though tbh, post-s2, the full trifecta</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 05:21:19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,972</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26184895</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/thebeautifulbadass/pseuds/thebeautifulbadass</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>An exploration of scars.</p>
<p>Title from "cardigan" by Taylor Swift.</p>
<p>(Please note that the fics in this series are unrelated one-shots; you don't need to read the first one to read this one!)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Judy Hale/Jen Harding</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>you and me, we’re the stuff of folklore [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1847128</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>103</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>you drew stars around my scars</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I wrote most of this a month ago and then I had some huge struggles with motivation... I'm sure I could continue overthinking this fic forever, but it's finally at the point where I feel okay putting it out into the world.</p>
<p>The biggest shoutout to my girlfriend: I got stuck so many times while writing/editing this, and she helped dig me out every single time. She handed several parts of this story (and some of the opening scene's dialogue) to me on a silver platter, and I'm so grateful. I literally could not have finished this without her.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“I look like fucking Frankenstein,” Jen says, as she gazes into the mirror at the still-fresh scar on the side of her face. She’s struggling to put her earrings in with one hand, her left arm immobilized in a sling.</p>
<p>Judy glances over from where she’s hovering on the edge of the bed, watching Jen get ready, just in case she needs help with anything else, the way she has every morning in the weeks since the accident. “Frankenstein was the doctor, not the monster,” she replies casually.</p>
<p>Jen sighs. “You <em> obviously </em> know what I mean.”</p>
<p>“I’m just looking out for you. Someone has to make sure your literary references are correct. What you <em> mean </em> is that you look like Frankenstein’s <em> monster</em>. Which you don’t, by the way.”</p>
<p>“Jesus Christ.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>***</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Judy’s seen Jen’s mastectomy scars dozens of times now, but this isn’t the same as helping her best friend bathe and get dressed every day for four weeks after a car accident that broke her elbow, fractured her shoulder, sprained her back, and gave her a severe concussion.</p>
<p>This is...definitely not that.</p>
<p>Judy doesn’t know <em> what </em> this is, because they haven’t even kissed yet—god, she really hopes it’s a <em> yet</em>—but she’s tucked into Jen’s side on the outdoor couch, a blanket covering their laps, cozy in their pajamas, <em> The Facts of Life </em> on the TV in the background, and while they both stare at the screen, unseeing, Jen is silently guiding Judy’s hand under her shirt.</p>
<p>Judy can’t string a coherent thought together—it’s like her brain is made entirely of exclamation points signaling an alarm of some sort—but she lets Jen guide her, and then when the angle forces Jen to stop, Judy keeps going, and then in an instant that cracks her life into a Before and an After, her fingers are grazing lightly over thick, raised scar tissue. Her heart is hammering in her ears, and as her fingertips dance across skin, she feels Jen’s heartbeat hammering too, right there beneath her fingers, and she feels powerful, more powerful than she maybe ever has in her life.</p>
<p>It feels like she’s been touching Jen for simultaneously a fraction of a second and an entire lifetime, a lifetime she sees stretching out before them, filled with moments like this one, as her fingers skate over the landscape of Jen’s chest, and she wants this to last forever, but she is who she is, so she can’t stay quiet. She stills her hand, spreads her palm flat in the center of Jen’s breastbone, pushes past the terror beating in her throat as she turns her head—just slightly, because they’re already so close to begin with—to look at Jen.</p>
<p>Jen’s gaze is still fixed on the TV, but Judy sees her swallow and can tell Jen is aware of her eyes on her.</p>
<p>“Jen,” she whispers. She wants to ask a question—multiple questions, really—but it suddenly seems unnecessary.</p>
<p>She feels Jen’s chest rise and fall beneath her hand right before she turns her head and their eyes meet.</p>
<p>Jen stays quiet at first. Judy had expected to see confidence in her eyes, but instead all she sees is vulnerability and fear, and it breaks something open inside of her, but she forces herself to be quiet and wait because she knows Jen well enough to know that’s what she needs.</p>
<p>Finally, Jen clears her throat. “Thank you.”</p>
<p>Judy’s brow furrows. “For what?” She smirks then, and shoots Jen a look. “Touching your chest?”</p>
<p>“No,” Jen breathes out the tiniest laugh and Judy feels some of the tension surrounding them dissipate. “For taking care of me. Since the accident.” She swallows heavily.</p>
<p>Judy rests her chin on Jen’s shoulder and smiles up at her. “Not a big deal, babe. I’d do it again a thousand times.” She pauses. “I mean, I’d rather you <em> not </em> get injured a thousand more times, but...I think you get—”</p>
<p>Jen’s lips are on hers, and she isn’t even sure how it happened, doesn’t remember going from there to here, but the <em> yet </em> has become a <em> yes </em> and the details aren’t important.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>***</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Jude, I’m gonna need you to take this off,” Jen mumbles against Judy’s lips, tugging at the waist of her dress.</p>
<p>It’s been a week since that night on the couch, and they’ve been stealing kisses when they leave each other for work in the morning, after the dinner dishes have been cleared in the evening, mapping out each other’s bodies with hungry hands while they sit outside drinking wine.</p>
<p>But tonight things have escalated, a wordless agreement that they’ve waited long enough.</p>
<p>They’re in Jen’s bed and Judy feels like she’s been waiting for this her entire life. She doesn't think twice before leaning back slightly and undoing the buttons down the front of her dress. Jen waits, her hands underneath the fabric, on the skin of Judy’s waist, fingers dancing up her sides impatiently, and as soon as the last button is loose, Jen gathers the skirt into her fists and pulls the dress up over Judy’s head, tossing it onto the floor.</p>
<p>Judy grasps Jen’s face for another long kiss before pulling away again and lifting Jen’s silk blouse over her head. She doesn’t even hesitate to reach around Jen’s back and unclasp her bra. The familiarity and intimacy she feels now with Jen’s chest, this part of Jen that’s always been a sensitive subject, a painful memory, flips Judy’s stomach.</p>
<p>Once the bra has been discarded, Judy’s fingers are instantly drawn to the now familiar scars. Jen doesn’t flinch—not when her shirt is pulled off, not when her bra is unclasped, not when Judy touches her—as if she welcomes Judy unwrapping every layer, and Judy has to tamp down a swelling balloon of emotion in her chest at the realization that maybe just maybe Jen doesn’t hate this part of herself anymore, that she’s stopped believing the lies seared into her brain from the stifling, bitter grief of being unwanted by the person who’d promised to love her forever.</p>
<p>This thought fills Judy with confidence and before she can second-guess herself, she’s bent her head down and is kissing Jen’s chest for the first time, marking sparkling stars of desire across her scars, and Jen’s head falls backward, her smile pointing up to the ceiling. When Judy stops, looks up, and sees this, this look of pure wonderment and bliss on Jen’s face, she nearly cries, and since she suspects Jen isn’t one to <em> love </em> crying during sex, Judy pushes through the emotion and continues her trail of kisses, moving her lips across Jen’s neck, her collarbone, her newly healed shoulder.</p>
<p>She feels Jen’s hands reach behind her to unhook her bra, and suddenly this garment is also being flung across the room, and she’s pushed down onto her back, and then her underwear are coming off, and Jen’s mouth is everywhere, and Judy swears she’s never felt so worshipped. But when Jen is somewhere around her hips, she stops, and Judy’s eyes open to find a confused expression on Jen’s face.</p>
<p>And then Judy realizes why.</p>
<p>Jen’s fingers trace across a line of shiny circles marring the skin on her hip. She watches as Jen discovers line after line of them, some pink, most white, her fingers jumping from scar to scar, down her hips to her upper thighs, zigzagging back and forth as her eyes adjust and start picking out even the faded ones, and Judy feels so stupid, so stupid that it <em> almost </em> makes her want to burn fresh ones into the skin already burning from Jen’s touch.</p>
<p>Why hadn’t she thought of this? She’d known she and Jen were heading here, so why hadn’t this moment occurred to her? She’s not sure why it would matter if it <em> had</em>, if she’d thought of it a few days ago or an hour ago. It’s not like she can erase the scars or go back in time and fix herself; it’s not like sitting Jen down and warning her—<em>By the way, I’ve spent the past thirty years occasionally burning the shit out of myself, please ignore it when we eventually have sex</em>—would have changed this outcome, this moment when Jen sees the evidence. Her scars are something she doesn’t even think about most of the time, and she can say with certainty that they haven’t crossed her mind even once in the time since she and Jen became...whatever they are now.</p>
<p>By the time Jen looks up at her—having discovered what Judy is pretty sure is every single traumatic memory she’s ever marked upon her skin—her brow is creased even deeper with worry and Judy is drowning in shame, her chest rising and falling with shallow breaths, tears of panic in her eyes. She feels like a deer in headlights, unable to move even though all she wants to do is pull a blanket over her body and hide.</p>
<p>Jen’s face softens instantly and she moves up the bed to sit next to Judy. She doesn’t say anything, just rests her hand over Judy’s on top of the duvet and kisses her bare shoulder, her hair falling down and tickling Judy’s skin, making her shiver.</p>
<p>Judy sits in the silence, trembling, flinging furious barbs at herself inside her mind, her face hot. She pulls her knees into her chest and wraps her arms around them, tight, trying to make herself as small as she feels. “I’m so stupid,” she hisses finally.</p>
<p>“Judy.”</p>
<p>“I didn’t even think about—”</p>
<p>“Jude.”</p>
<p>Judy’s face crumples and she can’t hold back the angry tears, and Jen just wraps her in her arms and holds her.</p>
<p>“It’s okay,” Jen whispers, kissing the side of her head. “You’re okay.”</p>
<p>“I’m so sorry,” Judy murmurs through her tears. “I’m so sorry, Jen.”</p>
<p>“Babe, why are you sorry?” Jen’s fingers are running through her hair.</p>
<p>“Because this… none of this is fair to you.”</p>
<p>“I’m...not sure I’m following.”</p>
<p>Judy wrings her hands where they’re clasped around her knees, her entire body heavy with guilt. She feels like a hypocrite, doesn’t think she deserves Jen’s comfort, not for this. Judy had accepted Jen’s scars, all of them, instantly without question. Who is she to feel ashamed of her own scars, disgusted with herself, when she wants to spend every minute making sure Jen doesn’t feel that way about hers?</p>
<p>But Jen didn’t have a choice when it came to her scars. And here Judy is, having decorated her body with them for three decades, basically for kicks. The sharp dichotomy makes her feel sick, unworthy. She did this to <em> herself</em>.</p>
<p>“You didn’t choose your scars, but I did. I don’t have the right to be ashamed.”</p>
<p>“I mean, I sort of <em> did </em> have a choice with—”</p>
<p>“No you didn’t, Jen. Not really,” she insists, cutting her off. “I did, and I <em> chose </em> this, so many times”—her voice cracks—“because I have no control over my own fucking impulses.” Jen holds her tighter and Judy knows she doesn’t deserve it.</p>
<p>“It sounds like you didn’t really have a choice either,” Jen says, so straightforward, and god, Judy knows she’s right, it’s not like she chose her mental illnesses from the supermarket shelf as a child, but she still feels weak and stupid.</p>
<p>Judy’s quiet for a beat, focusing on the truth of Jen’s words, trying to absorb them and believe them, until she feels centered enough to say something important, something she needs to say. “I just... I want you to know that I love your scars, Jen. All of them. I hate that they’ve hurt you, but they’re part of you, and I love every part of you. Just because I can’t handle my own shit doesn’t mean I’m lying when I say that your scars are beautiful and I love them and I love you. Okay?” She looks at Jen, and sees that her eyes are shining. “Don’t cry,” she whispers, reaching for Jen’s cheek.</p>
<p>Jen’s lips twitch up just slightly at that and she drops her forehead against the side of Judy’s head.</p>
<p>“I know how it feels to hate scars when they’re on your own body, Jude. You know I know that better than anyone. So you can feel however you feel, okay? I swear I’m not judging you. I would never judge you.”</p>
<p>“Okay,” Judy whispers, resting her fingers on Jen’s arm.</p>
<p>Jen lifts her head and Judy can feel her eyes on her. “Jude?”</p>
<p>“Yeah?” she asks, meeting her gaze.</p>
<p>“They don’t bother me. I think you know that already, but... I just want to make sure.”</p>
<p>“They don’t?” Judy’s voice is small when it comes out of her, and she feels ridiculous, because she <em> knows </em> this already, knows Jen of all people would never make her feel the way Ted made her feel, but she needs the reassurance.</p>
<p>“Of course not,” Jen laughs a little in disbelief and gives her a comforting smile. “I mean, it bothers me that you’ve ever been in enough pain to do that to yourself. Which is a whole separate conversation. We should probably talk about therapy. But the actual scars don’t bother me.” She brushes Judy’s bangs to the side. “I love every part of you too,” she says with conviction.</p>
<p>Judy feels a small smile tugging at her lips. “I love you.”</p>
<p>“I love you too, Jude.”</p>
<p>And Judy’s crying again, quietly, and she doesn’t even know why because she feels significantly better than she did five minutes ago, and then it hits her that she’s <em> crying</em>, <em> naked</em>, in Jen’s <em> bed</em>. “Shit!” she whines.</p>
<p>Jen sits back and shoots her a questioning look.</p>
<p>“I ruined this,” Judy continues, laughing through her tears at the realization. Because it’s bad enough that Jen has seen the tangible manifestation of her deepest shames burned across her body and that they’ve just had the biggest boner-killer of a conversation possibly ever, but now here she is, crying (again) when they should’ve been having sex for the first time. Jesus.</p>
<p>“You didn’t ruin anything,” Jen tells her firmly, a smile on her face as she runs her hand down Judy’s arm.</p>
<p>“Yes I did,” Judy insists. “I swore I wasn’t gonna cry during sex, because I feel <em> pretty certain </em> that you’re not a fan, and then I started crying during sex.”</p>
<p>Jen laughs under her breath. “We have plenty of time, babe.”</p>
<p>Judy looks at her and lets the truth of those words wash over her. She reaches for Jen’s face and cups her cheek and just looks at her before leaning in and kissing her softly.</p>
<p>When they pull apart, Jen reaches for a throw blanket sitting on the bench at the foot of the bed, then spreads it over them both.</p>
<p>Jen lies down on her side, her head propped up in her hand, and pats the pillow, motioning for Judy to do the same. Judy follows, her head falling into the pillow next to Jen’s elbow, and Jen’s free hand instantly lands in her hair, fingers combing through dark waves.</p>
<p>After a few minutes, Jen stops propping herself up and lies down fully, her face only a few inches from Judy’s. “Do you want to tell me about it?” she asks quietly.</p>
<p>They look at each other for a long time, but then Judy’s mouth opens and she’s telling her everything.</p>
<p>She tells Jen about how when she was twelve, she started stealing her mom’s cigarettes—her mom was so out of it most of the time that she never even noticed any were missing—and she would burn herself over and over again to numb whatever pain she was feeling.</p>
<p>How her mom would disappear for days at a time on drug benders and she would always blame herself, burn away the loneliness and fear with the fiery tip of a cigarette.</p>
<p>How, after her mom went to prison, she was put into the foster care system and how she used the burns to punish herself, because <em> everything </em> was her fault—her own suffering and her mom’s.</p>
<p>How she grew up and grew out of it, how most of the time she’s able to channel these dark feelings into her art, and when she can’t, she does things that won’t leave scars, things that Jen has witnessed, but how sometimes, something so overwhelming happens that it breaks her down and turns her into that scared child with nowhere to turn and she can’t help but fall into old patterns.</p>
<p>How she managed to survive two miscarriages without fully blaming herself—because these things <em> happen</em>, they’re common, it didn’t necessarily mean she was <em> broken</em>—but by the third, the guilt she felt at her body being an inhospitable environment, at being unable to bring her children into the world, was so heavy that she had to burn it away.</p>
<p>How the night she killed Ted was the start of one of the worst depressive periods of her life and how, ever since, she’s had the most agonizing PTSD she’s ever experienced, how in the days directly afterward, she had bought pack after pack of cigarettes and smoked them all, burned herself with each and every one, night after night, line after line, locked in the guest bathroom next to her Buddha statue, whimpering stoically through the pain while Steve slept peacefully in their bed down the hall.</p>
<p>Jen strokes her arm, her waist, her hair, and simply listens, and when Judy’s done talking, Jen pulls her into her and tucks her head into her neck. She rubs Judy’s back and holds her until she feels human again, and when Judy drifts off to sleep—exhausted from reliving the past, but somehow light, as if Jen has lifted away some of the weight from her memories, helping her carry it—a butterfly of hope whisks through her mind that maybe she’ll never have to burn herself again, now that she’s found home.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>***<br/><br/></p>
<p>Judy sees the way Jen looks at herself anytime she’s near a mirror, or a car window, or any other reflective surface. The way she balks anytime Judy wants to take a photo of her, the way she reacts when Judy takes one she’s unaware of, the way she always grabs the phone from Judy’s hand and zooms in on her own face, frowning.</p>
<p>Judy has tried everything she can think of. At first, she’d tried bringing as little attention to the scar as possible, thinking that’s what Jen would want, but when months passed and nothing changed, she’d started showering the scar with affection, tracing it with her fingers whenever they would share a quiet moment together. She’s touched it, kissed it, assured Jen she loves <em> every </em> part of her. She’s pointed out the smaller mirror of a scar on her own temple, the way they almost match. She even plays along with Jen’s self-deprecating jokes, of which there have been many over the past eight months as they watched the scar fade from red to pink to white.</p>
<p>She’s managed to strike a balance now in terms of acknowledging it, always what feels right in the moment, whatever temporarily best serves her goal of showing Jen how beautiful she is.</p>
<p>But no matter what she does, Judy sees the same look in Jen’s eyes every time she catches a glimpse of herself, every time she’s reminded of the permanently marred, raised flesh on the side of her face. It fills Judy with sadness when she thinks of the way that Jen has finally healed from the wounds of her mastectomy scars but still, months later, can’t seem to get past this new one on her face.</p>
<p>Judy doesn’t know what to do, but she remembers that she and Jen still haven’t gotten to take that vacation they wanted, and she figures that a change of scenery, a break from the realities of daily life, can’t hurt, so she brings it up after dinner one night while they’re drinking wine on the outdoor couch, and Jen’s eyes light up.</p>
<p>They decide on Oahu because the airfare is relatively inexpensive (they need to watch their finances a bit more closely now after Judy had to pay all their hospital bills), and with the boys safely tucked away at Lorna’s for two weeks, they’re off.</p>
<p>It’s perfect. Judy relishes every sparkle in Jen’s eyes, every smile that spreads wide across her face as they exist, weightless, finally free, and she knows it’s been long enough since Steve, since the accident, that it shouldn’t have taken them this long to relax, but here, in this paradise, with this woman, this miracle made of magic, in her arms every day and every night, she feels lighter than she has in years, maybe her entire life, and she knows intuitively that Jen feels the same.</p>
<p>Judy can feel their entire existence together recalibrating into some semblance of normalcy; she feels fifteen years younger, existing only for herself and Jen, with no responsibilities, no emotionally abusive mothers or exes, no miscarriages, no hit-and-runs, no manslaughter or murder. They drink cocktails out of coconut shells, and they go dancing, and they have sex without worrying about being too loud, and they make out on the beach, and Judy doesn’t hesitate when she unties her sarong to run into the waves with Jen, hand in hand, exposing her burn scars to the Pacific sunshine, her heart floating as they stand submerged up to their chests in the ocean, Jen kissing the salty spray from her face, Jen’s fingers drifting across the marks on her thighs beneath the water, a secret <em> I love you </em> just for them.</p>
<p>Judy has been bringing her pens and paints and sketchbook to the beach every day. She’s usually not a fan of landscapes, but the views here are so out-of-this-world beautiful that she wants to try to capture them, and she’s been inspired by the wildlife too, like a dolphin arcing up from the water for a brief instant that feels frozen in time (they’d both gasped the first time from the surreal marvel of it), or a turtle lazily tracing lines into the sand, or a gull dipping down and skimming its feet over the surface of the ocean.</p>
<p>One morning halfway through their trip, Judy glances at Jen, who’s lying beside her, propped up, reading a book, a huge, silly, droopy sun hat shading her face—they’d each bought one the day they arrived, giggling over the ridiculous size of them—and her chest feels warm. She studies the lines of Jen’s face—her lips, the adorable upturn of her button nose, the lines around her eyes, the jagged white scar fading into her temple—and she decides to focus today’s artistic efforts on a different kind of natural beauty.</p>
<p>She’s watched Jen become freer, looser, every minute they’ve been here; Jen has even grudgingly let Judy take photos of the two of them together, but she always tries to angle her scar away from the camera, or cover it with sunglasses or her hat, and Judy hates the amount of time Jen wastes thinking about such an insignificant mark on her skin. (She gets it, but she wishes she could make Jen understand that the scar is just another symbol of her survival, of the fact that she gets to <em> live</em>, and that Judy gets to continue loving her.)</p>
<p>Looking at Jen, her fingers tingle with the desire to be close, and she wants to crawl across the beach blanket and cuddle up to her—even though it’s far too hot for such things—but she’s moved to create, so instead she settles onto her stomach, propping herself up on her elbows, and quietly pulls her art supplies from her bag. She looks at Jen again with a small, content smile on her face, and starts to draw.</p>
<p>Judy’s heart feels full and happy as her hand flows across the page, lines of ink transforming into her favorite face. She thinks she’ll never get over the way making art feels like magic, the way she sometimes can’t believe she’s created something lasting and true, beautiful and meaningful, rather than wreaking havoc, breaking and hurting and destroying everything in her path. The warm breeze brushes against her bare skin and flutters the corners of the pages in her sketchbook. She uses the fingers of her free hand to hold it down as she focuses on getting every detail just right, and when she finishes the line drawing, she snaps the cap onto her pen, sets it down, and smiles at her work.</p>
<p>She glances over at Jen again, her eyes drawn to her temple. An idea comes to her, and she’s instantly reaching for her tin of paint pens and her little rectangle of watercolors. She pours a few drops of water from a bottle into the tray of her paint set and mixes a deep blue, almost black, then brushes a hazy cloud of night sky above Jen’s head. She uncaps the yellow paint pen and she feels a flutter in her stomach as she draws tiny, delicate, bright yellow starbursts in the empty space of Jen’s temple, right where her scar should be. She checks to make sure the watercolor is dry, and then tosses the same yellow starbursts into the sky above her head.</p>
<p>Judy stares down at the page and thinks distantly that she’s maybe never loved anything she’s created more than this—this ode to Jen’s beauty, Jen’s enchanting existence, rather than the usual shrines to her own pain and heartbreak. She doesn’t need to paint children missing their hearts because Jen has made her a mother; she doesn’t need to paint empty hearts onto her own body because her heart is no longer empty—it’s never been more full.</p>
<p>Judy is so absorbed in her thoughts, she doesn’t notice that Jen has stopped reading and is looking curiously over at her sketchbook. When she caps the paint pen and places it back into its tin, snapping the lid shut, she feels Jen roll over next to her.</p>
<p>“What are—” Jen cuts herself off with the tiniest hitch in her breath as she reaches out and grips Judy’s wrist, probably harder than she intends to. “Jude,” she whispers, her eyes glued to the paper.</p>
<p>Judy looks at her, a smile tugging at her lips, and when Jen finally turns her head and Judy finds herself looking into Jen’s wide eyes, she feels like she’s staring right into the wide open sky. “Do you like it?” she asks softly, the taste of hope on her tongue.</p>
<p>“Jesus, Judy, of course I like it,” Jen replies, her voice trembling. “I fucking love it. I fucking love <em> you</em>.” And she’s said it before—they’ve been together for seven months now, and they used to say it even before they realized they were <em> in </em> love—but Judy thinks this might be her favorite <em> I love you </em> yet.</p>
<p>Judy maneuvers herself onto her side, grabs Jen’s face, and kisses her, her fingers drifting slowly, deliberately down the scars on Jen’s temple. “I love you too. So much,” she whispers against Jen’s lips.</p>
<p>She doesn’t know if this will change anything, doesn’t dare to think her art is important enough to untangle the self-doubt in Jen’s brain, but she hopes so. She hopes more than anything that when Jen next catches a glimpse of her face in a mirror, or in a car window, or in a photo on Judy’s phone, she’ll see bright, shining stars instead of flaws, that she’ll see the magic that Judy sees every time she looks at her.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>***</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Neither of them are one hundred percent sure of the exact date of their one-year anniversary.</p>
<p>So Judy is surprised when she comes home from work to find a bouquet of daisies—her favorite—with a note waiting for her on the kitchen counter.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em> Today’s as good a day as any. I love you on all of them. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> —Jen </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>She swears her heart does some sort of somersault.</p>
<p>When Jen gets home, Judy finds herself being whisked away to <em> their spot </em> on the beach—the spot where Judy is now fairly certain she’d first fallen in love with Jen, so long ago, at the start of everything—and they sit on a blanket, eating takeout and surreptitiously drinking white wine from clear plastic cups and kissing. <em> So </em> much kissing—Judy can’t stop kissing her; she can’t believe it’s been a whole year of getting to kiss Jen whenever she wants, truly the happiest year of her life.</p>
<p>The sun has started to set over the ocean, and Jen pulls out her phone, holds it up to take a photo of them together, an orange glow filtering across their skin. Jen turns her face to look at Judy just before she hits the shutter button.</p>
<p>Judy is stunned, even more so when Jen opens Instagram (which she’s only had for a few months, after Judy had finally convinced her in Hawaii). Jen is usually one to live in the moment; even before the accident, she hadn’t taken photos of herself very often, much less shared them publicly. But Judy sits there and watches, proud and victorious, as Jen posts their anniversary photo—her sun-drenched scar on full display—with zero hesitation.</p>
<p>Judy wraps her arms around Jen, nestles her chin onto her shoulder. The weight of Jen’s head falls against her own, and she hears a soft, content sigh as they both gaze out over the sun-streaked ocean.</p>
<p>She feels warm inside. Warm, and safe, and so fucking happy. She thinks she might be glowing as bright as the sky.</p>
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